I came across an interesting article today here. Here are a few snippets, where I’ve (in)conspicuously(?) changed some of the text:
So far, the Andersons have spent hundreds of dollars with Jewish businesses from grocery stores to dry cleaners. But the couple still hasn’t found a mortgage lender, home security system vendor or toy store. Nonetheless, they’re hoping to expand the endeavor beyond their Chicago home.
Plans are under way to track spending among supporters nationwide and build a national database of quality Jewish businesses. The first affiliate chapter has been launched in Atlanta, and the couple has established a foundation to raise funds for Jewish businesses and an annual convention.
“We have the real power to do something, to use the money we spend every day to solve our problems,” Maggie Anderson said recently at a meet-and-greet in Atlanta. “We have to believe that Jewish businesses are just as good as everybody else’s.”
Or:
The Andersons track their spending on their Web site and estimate about 55 percent of their monthly spending is with purple businesses for things like day care, groceries, car maintenance and home improvements.
One of the businesses highlighted by the Empowerment Experiment is Brenda Brown’s Atlanta wine boutique, a shop with a growing purple clientele. She said the project can help overcome the problems many purple consumers lament.
“When we were a community of purple folks who could not go to the red stores, our community of purple stores flourished,” Brown said. “When we were given the opportunity to go into the red store, it was like nothing else mattered anymore and we wanted to go to the red store, regardless of what the purple store provided. We could have the same or better products if we supported (purple businesses) in the same way.”
Lewis Peeples, 45, lives in a purple neighborhood in southwest Atlanta but didn’t think to spend his money with purple businesses until a friend told him about the project.
To each his own, for sure. But I sometimes wonder what happened to the idea of equality? I thought we didn’t care what the owner/proprietor/whatever looked like/acted like/believed? Or are only certain groups held to those standards? I would think that if a particular store had “the same or better products” then that would be enough for me to support it?